defensive or offensive, and has originally no necessary, and often no actual, relation to the preservation of order among the combined individuals. Once more, let us admit the indefensible assumption that to escape the evils of chronic warfare, which must otherwise continue among them, the members of a community enter into a "pact or covenant," by which they all bind themselves to surrender their primitive freedom of action, and subordinate themselves to the will of a ruling power agreed upon;[1] accepting, also, the implication that their descendants forever are bound by that covenant which their great-great-great, etc., grandfathers made for them. Let us, I say, not object to these data, but pass to the conclusions Hobbes draws. He says:
For, where no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and every man has right to every thing; and, consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust and the definition of injustice is, no other than the not performance of covenant.... Therefore, before the names of just and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants by the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant.[2]
Were people's characters in Hobbes's day really so bad as to warrant his assumption that none would perform their covenants in the absence of a coercive power and threatened penalties? In our day "the names of just and unjust can have place" quite apart from recognition of any coercive power. Among my friends I could name half a dozen whom I would implicitly trust to perform their covenants without any "terror of some punishment"; and over whom the requirements of justice would be as imperative in the absence of a coercive power as in its presence. Merely noting, however, that this unwarranted assumption vitiates Hobbes's argument for State-authority, and accepting both his premises and conclusion, we have to observe two significant implications. One is that State-authority, as thus derived, is a means to an end, and has no validity, save as subserving that end: if the end is not subserved, the authority, by the hypothesis, does not exist. The other is, that the end for which the authority exists, as thus specified, is the enforcement of justice—the maintenance of equitable relations. The reasoning yields no warrant for other coercion over citizens than that which is required for preventing direct aggressions, and those indirect aggressions constituted by breaches of contract; to which, if we add protection against external enemies, the entire function implied by Hobbes's derivation of sovereign authority is comprehended.
Hobbes argued in the interests of absolute monarchy. His modern admirer, Austin, had for his aim to derive the authority of law from the unlimited sovereignty of one man, or of a number of men, small
